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First of all, I want to publicly thank Mr. Louis Lo, Chairman of the Gemmological Association of Hong Kong Ltd (GAHK) for his kind invitation for this opportunity to learn from you here and now. Moreover, as a researcher and writer, I appreciate very much his reasons to contact me after reading some of my company Web pages like the one at http://www.cita.es/branding
Of course, I also have to mention here Mr. Kevin Chan, Conference Secretariat, and all and everyone of their collaborators for many kind and efficient electronic messages in order to get and arrange the best for all of you. We appreciate the support of Hong Kong Government Agent (Innovation and Technology Commission). Whatever you do not like in the next minutes is only my fault, and what you should appreciate is their careful well done organisation merit.
I must honestly mention my scientific directors in Madrid, Prof. Dr. José Luis Morant and Dr. Manuel Hervás, as well as the official researcher Dr. Javier García Guinea who is the Vicepresident of Instituto Gemológico Español (IGE). I have learned from them the best I shall show to you now, but it is only my responsibility any scientific mistake here.
My Father said that before you try to understand any Science, like Gemmology Science, everybody must to learn what is Science, and what is not Science. If we want to explain a new technology for any scientific application, firstly we must to point out what technologies we are going to use, and what is the scientific target. Here we have three ones:
1. Digital transduction in order to identify objects (like gemstones)
2. Digital signatures in order to certify the origin, composition and
value
3. Nanotechnology in order to write and reading very small encoded
signs
Considering:
1. Methodologies to support standardisation and Community policies
2. Measurements and testing expert witnessing anti-fraud methodologies
3. Support to the development of Certified Reference Materials (CRMs)
At least, for these aims:
1. Setting up of virtual institutes (for gemmology analysis and certification-appraisals)
2. Support activities to medium and large-scale facilities (for gemstone
e-commerce)
3. Reference expert witnessing databases (for minerals and gemstone
enhanced security)
4. Measurement and quality management infrastructure (for gemstone
mining, cutting and e-commerce)
We have many reasons to look at the "technology state of the art" for the gemmology advance. In the last ten years Internet and public key cryptography developed new ways to offer goods in what is well known now as "electronic commerce". One of the problems still to be solved efficiently is how to link the information with the objects. The proposed solution can be useful for enhanced security, increasing the probability to recover lost or stolen things, as well as improving the commercial image and control of trademarks in the Internet for the years to come.
Technical Background
Spectrophotometry, (thermo-luminiscence), artificial vision (colour, shapes, refraction-difraction threedimentional measurement) and technical photography can be used for computer implementation of standard formats for any object accurate description. Once a method, a format and a tool are selected, the digital image of the object must be always the same. When necessary, analysis of physical behaviour of the materials can be used in order to find a single set of data related with the object. The data must be detailed enough to single our gemstone out.
Any digital representation of an object is always just a computer file. This file can be operated by one-way hash functions producing small messages. There are several tools for branding any object in order to print the hash value in the surface, or even inside.
Moreover, the trademark seller, the owner, or a trusted third party can add any other information related with the object to the message, and they can use public key cryptography for signing with a digital certificate. With or without it, a short message, for instance, 128 bits, can be enough digital information for any branding aim.
We are working with expensive gemstones. We are "reading gemstones" everyday. The point now is how can we teach a computer to read, or at least, to encode gemstones. This is what we are calling "gemstone transduction".
Digital pictures of precious stones can be performed in with very accurate optical tools, but crystal analysis, weight, faceted geometry, colour, clarity and electro-magnetic or thermal properties can also be used as an input of a computer program based in an algorithm. The output must be always the same for any single gemstone. Different gemstones must have different outputs in codification dependence based on the principles of confusion and diffusion that were suggested by Shannon. A gemstone can be considered the key, or the plain text, in a standard cryptosystem for object identification and authentication. The output can be printed in the gemstone using laser or nanotechnology tools. So, we shall perform "nanobranding" for "nanogemmology".
Economical, safety-security and social benefits
Socio-economic and safety-security interest exists in several direct applications of this new branding technology.
1. Protection of products and enterprises against defrauders will be
enhanced by new technologies
2. Illegal gemstone markets are connected with organized crime, and
enhanced security will reduce the links
3. Electronic commerce will develop new markets for sensitive items
starting from the luxury ones
4. Knowledge should be demonstrated on gemmology promoting new jewellery
industries and better standards
5. New employment will be created on the need of new high qualified
tasks for different aims and profits
Synergies of commercial organisations, industries, research centres, academic organizations active in scientific, technological projects and training activities, involved with the International Gemmology and Jewellery Industry, aiming at improving the exchange of information and knowledge among the different participants, facilitate technology transfer to the low-tech end-users, accelerate the dissemination and exploitation of results from research activities through a coordinating action for "nanobranding" for "nanogemmology".
Scientific and technological objectives
"Branding nanogemmology" will increase R&D on
1. Digital transduction in order to identify objects (like
gemstones) will be a basic research for future developments on gemmology
and many more anti fraud activities.
2. Digital signatures in order to certify the origin,
composition and value will be an important step from the cryptology from
active human beings to intelligent agents and pasive objects (like gemstones).
3. Nanotechnology in order to write and reading very
small encoded signs will also a technology transfer from laboratories to
the market.
The problem of univocally identifying a gemstone can be faced in two different ways: either a particular marking can be added to the gem, or the gem can be identified by taking, with proper means, a "fingerprint" of it. In both cases, the added brand or the identified fingerprint should be easily checked at the customer's side in order to guarantee the correspondence of the gemstone with the selling specifications. The two methods have their own specific pro's and con's; an external branding should be invisible at naked eye and at the same time difficult to counterfeit. The use of tightly focused lasers have been proposed for this purpose, thanks to the ability of the laser to 'write' on micrometric scales under the gemstone surface.
However, the serious risk of damage of the gemstone and possible long term changes in colour produced by the laser heath release call for extremely sophisticated techniques which can result in high operation costs of the branding system, which should be operated by highly skilled (and well paid) operators. On the contrary, the use of non-invasive techniques can be often preferred for identifications of the gems, because of its evident advantage with respect to the branding technique of not altering in any way the state of the gemstone.
Many physical parameters can be used for identifying a unique fingerprint of a single gemstone; however, the joint requirement of finding a properties which is peculiar of the individual gemstone and the possibility of measuring and identifying the same property both at the seller and customer side definitely individuates Raman microscopy, thermoluminiscence and spectroscopy are eligible methods for gemstone fingerprinting.
Raman effect for gemmology analysis
The Raman effect was discovered in late 1928 by the Indian physicist C.V.Raman; however, only the recent availability of cheap laser sources and sophisticated optical devices for laser focusing and spectra recovery has given to Raman microscopy the diffusion that it deserved. A number of commercial Raman systems are available at reasonable price, allowing the recording, in a few seconds, of characteristic spectra that can be later reproduced and checked for both identification of the type of gemstone and identification of the specific individual gem that produced the original 'fingerprint'. The Raman microscopy technique is fast, non invasive and can be used by non-specialised operators; moreover, the joint use of optical and Raman microscopy gives a unique and complete characterisation of the gemstone. In last years, a huge database of characteristic Raman spectra has been accumulated, and made available to the researcher both on traditional supports or through the Internet.
Thermoluminiscence and Thermoluminiscence Dosimetry
Thermoluminiscence (TL) is one of a family of processes collectively known as Thermally Stimulated Phenomena. Included in the family, in adition to TL, are Thermally Stimulated Conductivity (TSC), Thermally Stimulated Capacitance (TSCap), Thermally Stimulated Polarisation (TSPC) and Depolarisation Currents (TSDC; including Ionic Thermocurrents (ITC)), Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS), Thermal Gravimetry (TC), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), and several more. Each of these phenomena may be described by two fundamental stages:
Stage I, the perturbation of the system from equilibrium into metastable
state;
and Stage II, the thermally stimulated relaxation of the system back
to the equilibrium.
In each of the above techniques one monitors, by one means or another, the nont-isothermal change of a particularproperty of the material (e.g. luminiscence, conductivity, capacitance, etc) as the system returns to equilibrium during Stage II.
Here are 2 pictures to show this technology results for mineral digital analysis:
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The last technology that we can explain here in order to "read" gemstones using "COMPUTER VISION AND IMAGE UNDERSTANDING" state of the art, as far as we know.
Spectral imaging has the potential to make spatially resolved absolute
color measurement possible for automatic visual inspection in industrial
production applications. A detailed description and evaluation of the calibration
of such an imaging spectrograph can be given. The reproducibility of the
reflectance factors measured by the spectrograph is
determined empirically and the measurements are compared to those of
a spectrophotometer. Based on the CCD camera sensitivity, the probability
that a measured color is within one CIE L*a*b* unit of the-actual color
is predicted theoretically.
Electronic Signatures and Digital Certificates
Whatever is the technology we use for reading gemstones in digital formats (gemmology transductions), we must to consider how to encode and certify the information we can get out of each gemstone.
Electronic commerce is emerging as the future way of doing business between companies across local, wide area and global networks. Trust in this way of doing business is essential for the success and continued development of electronic commerce. It is therefore important that companies using this electronic means of doing business have suitable security controls and mechanisms in place to protect their transactions and to ensure trust and confidence with their business partners. In this respect the electronic signature is an important security component that can be used to protect information and provide trust in electronic business.
An electronic signature produced in accordance with the present document provides evidence that can be processed to get confidence that some commitment has been explicitly endorsed under a Signature policy, at a given time, by a signer under an identifier, e.g. a name or a pseudonym, and optionally a role.
The literature of cryptography has a curious history. Secrecy, of course, has always played a central role and for many years this sort of cryptography was the exclusive domain of the military. But during the last 20 years, public academic research in cryptography has exploded and now it is the real key for any electronic commerce development and safe implementation.
The branch of mathematics encompassing both cryptography and cryptanalysis is called cryptology and its practitioners are cryptologysts. Do average people (and professional gemmologists) really need this kind of security? Yes. There is no doubt about it in any conversation we kept with World class gemmologists in order to explain our plans.
The whole point of cryptography is to solve problems (actually, that is the whole point of computers -something many people tend to forget). Cryptography solves problems that involve secrecy, authentication, integrity, their risks and dishonest people. You can learn all about cryptographic algorithms, protocols and secret sharing techniques, but these are just academic unless they can solve a real problem. Like the gemmologists ones that we are looking at with new theoretical and practical approaches.
We shall explain secret and public key cryptosystems essentials first (that are available using very well known computer algorithms), and secondly some more complex protocols that we think can be used in new projects and very special relationships of gemmologists in the Internet.
A very general overview to cryptosystems
In conventional cryptosystems, such as the classic US Federal Data Encryption Standard (DES), a single key is used for both encryption and decryption. This means that a key must be initially transmitted via secure channels so that both parties can know it before encrypted messages can be sent over insecure channels. This may be inconvenient. If you have a secure channel for exchanging keys, then why do you need cryptography in the first place?
Public and private side of a key could be encoded in a similar conceptual way that modern cryptologists handle standard digital certificates (X.509 like).
In modern public key cryptosystems, everyone working as a Trusted Third Party (of course professional gemmologists are TTP too) has two related complementary keys, a publicly revealed key and a secret key (also frequently called a private key). Each key unlocks the code that the other key makes (a mathematical dualism like the effect-trick in magic one meaning that the secret-hidden effect makes possible the trusted certification while the public enjoy a presentation-broadcasting of the gemstone lots protecting industrial, technological and commercial secrets).
Knowing the public key (the open side of gemstone and gemmology knowledge) does not help you deduce the corresponding secret key (the hidden side of the effect). The public key can be published and widely disseminated across a communications network and for the best gemmology promotional campaign. This protocol provides a very safe way to publish too much about the gemstones without the need for the same kind of secure channels that a conventional paranoid and sociopath secretism require. Good gemmology business, like good cryptology algorithms, combine secrets with public broadcastings in a very, very elegant way.
With nowadays available cryptography anyone can use a recipient's public key to encrypt a message to that person, and that recipient uses her/his own corresponding secret key to decrypt that message. No one but the recipient can decrypt it, because no one else has access to that secret key. Not even the person who encrypted the message can decrypt it.
Message authentication is also provided in many software cryptosystems. The sender's own secret key can be used to encrypt a message, thereby "signing" it. This creates a digital signature of a message, which the recipient (or anyone else) can check by using the sender's public key to decrypt it. This proves that the sender was the true originator of the message, and that the message has not been subsequently altered by anyone else, because the sender alone possesses the secret key that made that signature. Forgery of a signed message is infeasible, and the sender cannot later disavow her/his signature.
These two processes can be combined to provide both privacy and authentication by first signing a message with your own secret key, then encrypting the signed message with the recipient's public key. The recipient reverses these steps by first decrypting the message with her/his own secret key, then checking the enclosed signature with your public key. These steps are done automatically by the recipient's software.
Public keys are kept in individual "key certificates" that include the key owner's user ID (which is that person's name), a timestamp of when the key pair was generated, and the actual key material. Public key certificates contain the public key material, while secret key certificates contain the secret key material. Each secret key is also encrypted with its own password, in case it gets stolen. A key file, or "key ring" contains one or more of these key certificates. Public key rings contain public key certificates, and secret key rings contain secret key certificates. A certification authority for the gemmology industry and professional activities support must care of the key rings of the gemmologists as well as the financial and administrative relationship with banks in order to warranty the industry, gemstone sellers, marketing and payments in the net.
At this point it is clear for us that Gem-related Jewellery Tecnology societies must do a lot for Internet understanding, and we are sure that certification authority services must be connected with industry leaders. With gemmologists, the knowledge is inherent and cannot be easily revoked. A true certification authority for gemmology certificates should begin by recognizing gemmologists, not by expecting gemmologists to recognize a society, a certification authority or even just the most useful cryptography and certification services in advanced and convenient technologies for better Internet electronic commerce and business to business relationships.
However, we would like to research further in the nowadays information technology and the cryptography that can be useful for new industry developments. In order to understand how we try to solve some electronic commerce problems (meaning here some of the problems of the professional jewelry manufacturers and the gemmology societies) we must to explain in detail our view of gemstones electronic commerce as a kind of very special protocols. And so, we are going to define here the protocols of interest for gemmologysts and we hope that this reminds any commercial, industrial and technological essentials as very special formal and professional protocols.
Protocol overview for professional gemmologists
A protocol is a series of steps, involving two or more parties, designed to accomplish a task. This is a very important definition. A "series of steps" means here that the protocol has a sequence, from start to finish. Every step must be executed in turn, and no step can be taken can be taken before the previous one is finished. "Involving two or more parties" means that at least two people are required to complete the protocol as one person alone does not make any protocol. A person alone can perform a series of steps to accomplish a task, but this is not a protocol (someone else must to attend the show or even can actively participate in a gemmology certification, appraisal and sell/buy operations). Finally, "designed to accomplish a task" means that the protocol must archive something. Something that looks like a protocol but does not accomplish a task is not a protocol (and for our gemstone electronic commerce purposes here it is just a waste of time).
Formal protocols have other characteristics and requirements as well:
· Everyone involved in the protocol must know the protocol and
all of the steps in advance
· Everyone involved in the protocol must agree to follow it
· The protocol must be unambiguous; each step must be well defined
and there must be no chance of a misunderstanding
· The protocol must be complete; there must be a specified action
for every possible situation
In daily life, there are informal protocols for almost everything: ordering goods over the telephone, playing poker, voting in an election and, of course, whenever a complex show happens there is a fantastic protocol too. No one thinks much about these protocols; they have evolved over time, everyone knows how to use them intuitively, and they work reasonably well. However, these days, more and more human interaction takes place over computer networks instead of face-to-face. Computers need formal protocols to do the same things that people do without thinking. If you moved from one state to another and found a voting booth that looked completely different from the ones you are used to, you could easily adapt. Computers are not nearly so flexible, but gemmologists must be so in a fantastic way.
We foresee some applications of advanced cryptographic protocols in Gem-related Jewellery Technology to secret sharing and secret splitting as well as in cryptographic protection of some special documents and databases.
European Directives for Electronic Signatures
The European directive on Electronic Signatures defines an electronic signature as: “data in electronic form which is attached to or logically associated with other electronic data and which serves as a method of authentication”. An electronic signature as used in the current document is a form of advanced electronic signature as defined in the European Directive on a community framework for electronic signatures."
The following are the major parties involved in a business transaction supported by electronic signatures as defined in the present document:
- the Signer;
- the Verifier;
- Trusted Service Providers (TSP);
- the Arbitrator.
The Signer is the entity that creates the electronic signature. When the signer digitally signs over data using the prescribed format, this represents a commitment on behalf of the signing entity to the data being signed.
The Verifier is the entity that validates the electronic signature, it may be a single entity or multiple entities.
The Trusted Service Providers (TSPs) are one or more entities that help to build trust relationships between the signer and verifier. They support the signer and verifier by means of supporting services including: user certificates, cross-certificates, timestamping tokens, CRLs, ARLs, OCSP responses. The following TSPs are used to support the functions defined:
- Certification Authorities;
- Registration Authorities;
- Repository Authorities (e.g. a Directory);
- TimeStamping Authorities;
- Signature Policy Issuers.
Certification Authorities provide users with public key certificates.
Registration Authorities allows the registration of entities before a CA generates certificates.
Repository Authorities publish CRLs issued by CAs, signature policies issued by Signature Policy Issuers and optionally public key certificates.
TimeStamping Authorities attest that some data was formed before a given trusted time.
Signature Policy Issuers define the technical and procedural requirements for electronic signature creation and validation, in order to meet a particular business need.
In some cases the following additional TSPs are needed:
- Attribute Authorities.
- Attributes Authorities provide users with attributes linked to public
key certificates
- An Arbitrator is an entity that arbitrates disputes between a signer
and a verifier.
It is clear for us that this certification approach is the rigth one for gemstone electronic commerce.
Branding of gemstones
I am aware that this one is the most sensitive part of my conference. Since 28th World Diamond Congress in Bangkok, July 1998, branded diamonds are avalaible as well as "viewers devices". However, the owners and the users of that technology are very careful with the information and the property of the system, devices and documents.
I wrote an article in 1999 about nanotechnology for nanogemmology several pourposes that you still can see at http://www.cita.es/joyas/nanogems.htm
GemKey printed version magazine (May 1999, page 26) kindly quoted some
of the ideas that would let your stones get an atomic-level tatto ("Up
and Atom"). Now let me to quote GemKey magazine about BRANDING: "The
word is starting to send sudders down more than just the spines of cattle.
But no matter which camp you are in with regards to De Beers´ proposed
diamond branding program, it seems impossible to have a moderate opinion
on the subject. Imagine the reaction if a similar program were to be proposed
for colored stones...".
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The diamond business will develop into a two-tiered market as a result of a branding program by De Beers. Glenn Rothman, CEO of Hearts on Fire,® Boston, MA, told about 300 retail jewelers attending a three-day training program in Las Vegas he expects De Beers to expand its branding program to the U.S. because it has changed from a company benevolent to retailers to one paying attention to disgruntled stockholders. "This means creating the maximum amount of profit possible," he says. "If De Beers can control [diamonds] from the mine to the finger, it will maximize profits". But Rothman, who is admittedly probranding, doesn't feel this will hurt the diamond business. "It will open up new opportunities. It will result in branded diamonds being thought of as 'new diamonds' and worth more. It will create a new industry."
In my honest opinion, branding technologies must be of interest of gemstone mines owners for electronic commerce from the mine to the buyer. We had a very satisfactory experience in Vietnam, as you can see at http://www.cita.es/Vietnam/MOU.htm
Since 1998 we are doing our best to promote rubies from Vietnam in Spain, European and Latin America countries as you can see at http://www.cita.es/estrella/English.htm
Moreover, we have some contacts in gemmological mining of Bolivia (ametrino-bolivianite in Anahí mine) and Colombia (Muzo and Chivor as well as twin emerald crystals from "Gran Peña" mine) and we are working for electronic commerce of Latin America as well as for an international gemstone auction project. One of our plans is to brand with our new technology approach any gemstone to be auctioned as well as the ones for electronic commerce.
We shortly explained it English at http://www.cita.es/branding
In Spanish at http://www.cita.es/marca
In French at http://www.cita.es/marques
In Italian at http://www.cita.es/griffe
and also in Portuguese at http://www.cita.es/novamarca
We also promoted an European Project with a long history that you can
read at http://www.cita.es/joyas/proyecto.htm
The origin and first evolution of our branding idea is there. It is
updated with a lot of e-mail quotes until 10th january, 1999. Some of our
contacts contributed with appropriate ideas and avalaible technologies
for our nanotechnology approach to nanogemmology in order to develop nanobranding
of gemstones. You can see here some examples of avalaible devides:
"Piezo-driven linear motor developed: The step from micro-technology to nano-technology requires more than a reduction of size by a factor of a thousand. If you want to move precisely in the nano-world, you don't succeed by perfecting proven techniques." Handelsblatt |
This picture of CD bits was taken with a Tube Scanner Head "Tall" having the same diameter as that of the Mini-STM, but twice the length. The stability decreases but the maximum is bigger. Together with our high voltage amplifiers a scanning range of up to 20 µm is possible. |
We have learned that serious investment in necessary for a "critical commercial mass" for technology R&D that is beyond our resources, so we are using our experience in order to expert witness on advanced gemmology while we look for partners and investors, and we have strong dicussions with "classical gemmologists" in Spain, sometimes even in Courts of Law. This is not the place neither the time to explain what is going on in Spain with stolen gemstones, but we are doing our best in order to improve the legal expert witnessing gemmology affairs in Spain.
My small company at Internet www.cita.es is still working on improvements in our technology approach still to be published. If there is time enough, I shall informally comment some of our latest researches for "any gemstone nanobranding" and nanotechnology. Some of our best explanations must be performed confidentially, but the best one I have here for people really interested must be shown in person, one by one, just because I must to show a crystal cell of a diamond in order to explain some geometrical phenomena physically "in our hands".
Nanotechnology gemstone manufacturing beyond nanobranding
Please remember now that carbon has several structures very well known. Let us have a look to some of them:
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Carbon can also combine with other elements, in estructures like these ones:
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1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the discovery of fullerenes.
There is a serious project for "conversion of fullerenes to diamonds".
Fullerene is any of various cagelike molecules that consitute the third
form of pure carbon (along with the forms diamond and graphite), whose
prototype C60 (buckyball) is the roundest molecule that exists. Fullerenes
are a class of discrete molecules, soccerball-shaped forms of carbon with
extraordinary stability. The different forms of fullerenes are given nicknames,
such as fuzzyball, bunnyball, and platinum-burr ball (from Buckminster
Fuller; because their configuration suggests the shape of his famous geodesic
dome).
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A method of forming synthetic diamond on a substrate is disclosed since 1996. The method involves providing a substrate surface covered with a fullerene or diamond coating, positioning a fullerene in an ionization source, creating a fullerene vapor, ionizing fullerene molecules, accelerating the fullerene ions to energies above 250 eV to form a fullerene ion beam, impinging the fullerene ion beam on the substrate surface and continuing these steps to obtain a diamond thickness on the substrate.
Technology and gemmology in Europe
The European Gemmology and Jewellery industries are considered to be of a relative very low technical level. There is a serious lack of knowledge on specific materials, low awareness of quality in process technologies, in most countries suffer from a low level of technical training. Some European Jewellery industries- the largest ones and the most advanced and innovative SMEs – carry on their in-house research and training; some Research Centres and Universities are working on materials and technologies that can be useful for a "branding nanogemmology" approach.
The majority of the European Jewellery Industry is based on conventional technologies and it is not easily open to advanced technologies. This is mostly due to the dimension of most production structures in this industry, formed mainly by micro-SME’s, without in-house research facilities and with a low level of managerial culture. We shall do our best in order to innovate in this old art.
Project Time-scale
"Nanobranding" for "nanogemmology" technologies project financing will
produce R&D results from the first months working on 3 technologies,
so the time-scale will stronly depend on the project financing partnership,
and the commitments to the tasks to be performed.
Avalaible instruments will help to certify gemstones for electronic
commerce in the first year producing important added value to European
gemmology, and enhanced security will let to recover stolen gemstones in
the future, for a very long time.
Our business proposal is to finance an European Ecomonic Interest Grouping (EEIG) like the one with statutes draft published at http://www.cita.es/cts
The Spanish Company "Cooperación Internacional en Tecnologías
Avanzadas (C.I.T.A.) SL" at Internet http://www.cita.es
is the only one with rights on this project, so it must inform to partners
and shareholders, or to the future members of the EEIG. Personal priorities
of the project manager are scientific and expert witnessing services right
now.
Additional information
The European Gemmology and Jewellery industries need – this need is brought forward and confirmed by the high number of industries from both the Jewellery industry itself and related knowledges and industries (e.g. laser manufacturing, nanotechnology, digital instruments for transduction and so on) to be updated on research projects closed and in progress and brought to a better and higher-level of technology through transfer of technology from other industries, dissemination of results deriving from research activities, and through training on latest technologies.
This "nanobranding" for "nanogemmology" proposal can also become involved in the Conservation and Preservation of Goldsmithing and Silversmithing Cultural Heritage.
The need to exchange knowledge on research activities and their results, to transfer technology and to (re)educate technicians is becoming strong, taking into consideration the major political, economic and social objectives of the project: improving employment levels, strengthening the competitiveness of international enterprises and improving the quality of the professional lives and goods. That is what we would like to improve from at http://www.cita.es/cts
Questions at the 2001 Hong Kong Gem-related Jewellery Technology Conference
Now, I shall be pleased to do my best to answer your questions, but please keep in mind that some information is propietary (we need a non-disclosure agreement to discuss some details), and that our priority now is to find loyal partners that can contribute with investments, technology transfers and gemmology support in order to make the good things to happen.
For instance, as soon as I come back to Madrid, I shall update what
you can see here at http://www.cita.es/HK
with your contributions and suggestions. In my honest opinion, a good
questions is always an intelligent present. I do not know if I shall be
smart and informed enough to answer all of your questions, but I promiss
to kindly reply your messages in the future because I am sure that many
people here can do a lot for our project technical improvements and investment
financing. We are always looking for "business angels", but maybe it could
be much better to find loyal partners and good advisors. Anyhow, we are
here to learn from all of you.
Finally, I want to publicly repeat again my gratitude to Mr. Louis Lo, Chairman of the Gemmological Association of Hong Kong Ltd (GAHK) and Mr. Kevin Chan, Conference Secretariat, and all and everyone of their collaborators for this opportunity to be here with all of you.
Thank you, very much!!!
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Miguel Angel Gallardo Ortiz, Mining
Engineer (UPM), Criminologist (UCM) and Expert Witness
Cooperación Internacional en Tecnologías Avanzadas (C.I.T.A.) SL at Internet http://www.cita.es Apartado Postal (P.O. Box) 17083, E-28080 Madrid, España (Spain) Tel.: (+34) 91 474 38 09, Modem/Fax: 91 473 81 97, E-mail: miguel@cita.es |